Podcast trumps lecture in one college study

Researcher: Students who listened to a lecture via iTunes U outperformed those who attended in person -- pause button a factor

By Dennis Carter, Assistant Editor - eSchool News

Podcast #2

The perfect blog and podcast for me

I think I have finally found the blog and podcast that I can really connect with. It is called The Clever Sheep and was created by Rodd Lucier. Rodd has used media and other telecommunications in his classrooms for over 20 years. Yet, his podcasts and blog seem to be relative to the "common" person. He has so much useful information for teachers but it's stated in a way that anyone could listen/read and get a lot out of both the podcast and the blog. I have also been following Rodd on Twitter here: thecleversheep

What It All Means - Part 5 for Module 5

Technologies are changing daily and along with that our students are changing, too. How do we as educators and schools deal with that fact?

• We can allow and support individualized learning, collaborative projects and active participation by all individuals in a class.
• We as educators MUST begin to use these technologies ourselves so that we can teach the students and feel very comfortable with these teachings.
• We need to teach our students to become critical consumers of the information they are taking in from the read/write web. With over 80 billion web pages out there, they need to be able to discern good information from bad information.
  

Henry Vilas Zoo Old Flamingo Yard

Old flamingo yard
Originally uploaded by Tori Spinoso

This is quite a useful idea. You can add a web link right in the note section on the photo. I added a link to a YouTube video about the Henry Vilas Zoo.

Research Activity Part 4: Podcasts

Mighty Mommy, Legal Lad, and Mr. Manners: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/

I found this podcast a bit lacking on a few things. I have been a listener of many tech podcasts so maybe I am being a bit too critical. However, I found that having the advertisements take up 1/3 of a 3-5 minute podcast a little annoying. I also felt that the reading from a script turned me off a bit. I'm not saying that a podcaster shouldn't have some notes but I felt very disconnected from these podcasters. I felt that anyone could have read what was written and done just as well. I would tend to listen to a podcast from someone that I felt was an expert on a subject. If you are an expert, you shouldn't really need to read word-for-word to complete a 2-3 minute podcast. I also felt that the information presented wasn't anything that EVERYONE already knows. Very basic information in the podcasts I listened to. I would not subscribe to these podcasts. The big positive is that the audio was done well. It sounded very professional.

Stanford University: http://itunes.stanford.edu/

I enjoyed this podcast as I felt as though I was sitting in on a lecture at school. I felt that I was involved in the 1 hour+ conversation. It was technical, so it is obviously for a specific audience but easily understood for almost anyone to enjoy. From this podcast, I actually learned a great deal and would definately subscribe to this podcast. There were many topics to choose from. I can see listening to this podcast on a long car ride! Hey, Stanford classes/lectures for free?? Who can beat that.

A news broadcast about media on the PBS podcast site: http://www.podcastingnews.com/details/www.onthemedia.org/index.xml/view.htm

This particular link did not work for me so I went into the PBS podcast site and selected a news media related podcast. The one I listened to was about public radio and television and how it should move forward in the podcast age. It was very interesting to listen to and was very professionally created. It sounds just like the radio but I was able to select exactly which topic I wanted to listen to and when I wanted to listen. This podcast was created for a general audience and absolutley everyone could take something away from it. It's all about news, so who wouldn't find something of interest. I really had no trouble with this podcast at all. The only thing I would tell PBS is to try and advertise this podcast a bit more. I really had no idea they had a podcast and have never seen it on PBS, and with a 3 year old, we wathc it often.

iZoofari Chats from the San Diego Zoo:

I searched iTunes for the word "zoo". There aren't a lot of zoos doing podcasts, which surprised me. It seems that there is so much information that a zoo could share and would want their visitors to know about. Many zoos do conservation work and research that the typical visitor would never know about. They just think that these poor animals are locked away in cages, but little do they know that the animals they are looking at are producing offspring that are being released into the wild. With this podcast, the listener can understand some of the in-situ and ex-situ conservation work being done, they can meet a zookeeper and learn about the animals....all in the same podcast. I really enjoyed it. I would have liked it to be a video podcast, however. I like to have the option to either watch and listen or just listen, but I do tend to gravitate toward the vidoe podcasts.

Podcasting Lesson Ideas

Lesson Title: Podcasting around the zoo

Type of web Tool: Video Podcast

SOL and Secondary Objectives Related to the Lesson: Learn the process of creating an audio and video podcast, learn animal facts and behaviors

Description of Lesson: The students will create a zoo video tour of the local zoo. They will each pick one animal they wish to create a podcast for. They will then do a bit of research on that animal from the class wiki that has been created for this project. They will submit an outline on what they plan to discuss in their podcast. This is when revisions will be made. At that point, we will take a field trip to the zoo and have the students break into two groups. Each group will take turns recording and hosting a podcast. They will give the animal name, location in the zoo, general statistics for the animal species and a bit about a behavior they see the animal doing at the time. Once all of the podcasts are completed, the students will bring the videos back to the classroom and they will be taught how to edit them properly. We will then upload each video to our class blog. Other students will then have a chance to comment through the blog. Students will be graded on the content and video editing of their own podcast.

Lesson Title: Cranes: Their Biology, husbandry and Conservation Podcasted!

Type of web Tool: Audio Podcast

SOL and Secondary Objectives Related to the Lesson: Learn the proper techniques of audio podcasting. Learn about crane behavior, biology and conservation.

Description of Lesson: For our bird behavior section in the biology class, each student will take a section of the book, "Cranes: Their Biology, Husbandry, and Conservation" and create an audio podcast from that. The students will be asked to read their chapters and write a 5 minute summary about what they learned on their particular topic. At this point, the students will create an outline on what they will be discussing in their podcast. We will then take each student and create an audio podcast for that chapter. Once all chapters are completed, they will share their podcast with the class and post it to our blog. We will also submit the podcast to the Internation Crane Foundation for them to use as they wish.

My first Podcast Part 4, Step 2

A Teaching and Technology White Paper: Podcasting

Are you someone who feels all of this technology "stuff" isn't helping our students as much as good ole classroom experience? You might be partially correct!

• A significant body of cognitive psychological research believes that "simultaneous processing" that takes place when one is multi-tasking (learning onthe go) diminishes performance with every added task.
• If lecture podcasts are available for the students to download, some feel that students will not attend class and loos out on the quality of classroom learning and takes away the consequences of missing a class.
• That being said, podcasts might be beneficially used for disseminating supplemental materials, which have been shown to have a positive impact on learning outcomes and performances.
  

Podcasting at the Cocktail Party - Part 4/Module 4

So...you've got something interesting to say? Why not let everyone hear you out through the means of a podcast, screencast or live web TV?

• Because all of these projects are relatively inexpensive and easy to accomplish, many schools are experimenting with podcasts, screencasting and live web TV.
• Join many popular news programs, professionals, universities, schools and ordinary people in podcasting. 1st graders though CEO's are using these tools as a means of communication.
• Simply download audicity.com, Skype and PowerGramo.com, set up your microphone and you are good to go! With this combination, you could record an interview with someone across the world.
  

Henry Vilas Zoo Annotated

Henry Vilas Zoo Annotated
Originally uploaded by tkald

Here is a technique that could really be useful in your classrooms. I tagged many of the prominent exhibits at the Henry Vilas Zoo and gave a small description/name to each section.

Ways in which you might use this tool are: tag all of the trees on your schools property, take a recent picture of a town and tag it as it was back in history, tag all of the parts of a flower. There are many more ways, you just need to be creative!

How often does the term EDUCATION come up in today's blogs

I found this very interesting. Technorati, the site you go to for anything related to blogs, has a search chart. You can put any word in the search area, or a combination of words to compare, and up pops a chart that shows how many blog posts discuss this word. You can change the chart's time frame to show the past 7, 30, 90 or 180 days. As of today, there have been close to 3,500 posts about education. This might be useful if you are still having trouble convincing your supervisors that blogging should become part of your curriculum.

Flickr discussion at the cocktail party

Interested in zoos? There are over 3.5 million photos on the photo sharing site, Flickr. Let me tell you what you can do with them.

• Another wonderful classroom web 2.0, Flickr allows youto search for any photo by the use of a tag (keyword). You could search for a certain animal or zoo location.
  
• Discussion can take place about the photo/collection right on the photos page. Students could pick a topic of their choice, find relevant photos and start a discussion with the photographer. Maybe they discuss how it was to photograph animal in the wild.
  
• Another useful tool that Flickr provides it geotagging. This is a method by which you can tag your photo with the latitude/longitude coordinates. Once these are in place, you can see, on a map like Google maps, exactly where the photo was taken. Useful, in that you could send your students out on a virtual field trip. For instance, send them to the plains of Africa or the forests of Borneo.
  

Social Web at the Cocktail Party.

Over 1 billion people across the world are using the internet. The ways in which we can all be connected are growing everyday.

• Twitter is a "micro-blogging" tool that can connect anyone, who is following you, to your daily life in just 140-characters or less.
• One way to manage your information within the 10 billion+ pages on the web today is by the use of social bookmarking. Diigolet and del.icio.us are two popular ways to tag you important information on the web.
• Not only can you organize your important information through the use of social bookmarking, you can also share this information with anyone through public pages.
  

RSS in 25 words or less...okay, a little corny!

If you only try one Web 2.0 tool it simply must be RSS. Once you become familiar with it, it can change your life....really!

• Instead of visiting many web sites daily for the information you seek, Real Simple Syndication (RSS) allows for the information (feeds) to come to you.
• In order to gather RSS feeds, you need to use an (aggregator collector of RSS feeds) such as Google Reader or Bloglines.com.
• There are numerous things you can do with RSS feeds and the aggregators, such as organizing your most revelant information, quickly search for interesting/revelant topics and tagging sites and articles for easy retrieval.

Image Blog Ideas - Module 3 Practice Activities

Lesson Title: The Henry Vilas Zoo....Geotagged!

Type of Web 2.0 tool: A Photoblog by geotagging

Objectives: Students will learn all about geotagging. They will learn what it is, the process behind it and other reasons to use geotagging. We will discuss other sources of geotagged photos.

Description of Lesson: The students will obtain an ariel photo of the zoo from a source such as TerraServer. Students will then take a trip to the zoo and seperate groups will be assigned their exhibits to photograph. Once these are taken, the next step is to gather latitude/longitude coordinates. This can also be done through the TerraServer site. Students will then learn how to use the free software, gpicsync. "GPicSync automatically inserts location in your photos metadata so they can also be used with any 'geocode aware' application like Picasa/Google Earth, Flickr, loc.alize.us, etc." We will present the photo to the zoo for them to upload onto their website. Once created and uploaded, the students will write a short summary about what they learned and how they went about doing the final project.

Research Activities Module 3 - photoblogs

Jane Goodall's Camp - This photoblog example shows one way that even very young students can use these tools. This young student (Sophie, grade 3) photographed the biome, of Jane Goodall's camp, that she created. She added things that Jane Goodall would use on a daily basis as she is observing the chimpanzees. Some item in the biome are: maps, fruit, pots, tea and a lantern. She then tagged and titled each item in the biome so that when the cursor is placed over the item, there is a lable that appears on the photo. This just shows that even young students can get introduced to web 2.0 in ways that are not very intimidating. You need a photo and an Flickr account. You can make this project public, like Sophie's or private, if need be.


The Secret Life of Plants - This photblog has some amazingly beautiful photos. There are over 50,000 plant photos in the collective photo album. There are 6,476 album members. The discussions range from "the secret life of plants documentary" to "help me identify". With this particular blog, students could either learn about the identity of the plants (maybe a plant taxonomy class), group together all blue flowers...all read flowers( a younger class) or they could create one of their own with a similar idea. They could collect photos on all the animals they see in a week or all of the leaves they see falling in the fall. There are so many ways that a class could use this type of photoblog and they could either do this by taking the photos themselves or by tagging other's photos into an a album of their own.


loc.alize.us - This site is a wonderful locating where you can geotag your "world". This phot was tagged with other photos that were taken at the exact location that the actual phot was taken. To explain this easier, the photographer took a phot and tagged it with latitude and longitude coordinates ( can also use lacation name or latitude). Then these coordinates are added to a larger photo, possibly using a digital globle photo. Then, another individual can go to the larger photo and click on the coordinates and see the picture taken from that exact location. People can search for photos even using just latitude and longitude coordinates. This can be used by students of all ages. Some older students could actual create a geotagged photo and younger students could learn from geotagged photos. They could "visit" the great barrier reef or the deserts of Australia without ever getting onto a plane. They could create one for the local zoo by tagging all of the exhibits and add a photo to those coordinates on a map. They could geotag all of the trees on the school property. I see so many options for this type of project...my mind is racing as I write!!

The Red Rule - Well, that title says it all. All of these photos in this photoblog had to have some red item in them. The items range from red lips on a billboard to a red ladybug on a leaf. There are over 234,000 photos in this album and there are 26, 319 members that have joined this community. There is, again, a discussion section to this community. These discussions range from "let's make a story" to "where are you from?". I see students doing the same in their classrooms. They could easily take pictures of items that are of a certain color shape, texture, size(large/small), etc. For younger students, teachers could gather photos in a similar manner. These photos could be of things that are very familiar to the students....fruits, veggies, toys, cars....whatever. Then the younger students could learn colors by searching through the photoblog. Oh, I guess I just recommended using these tools in a preschool setting.

Everland Zoo - A Flickr photoblog

This photoblog is a collection of 337 photos taken at the Everland Zoo in South Korea. It's the number one theme park and zoo in that area.

All of the photos are of really great quality. They show images of the animals, exhibits and the animal shows (of which I go not agree with!). Even though I personally do not agree with all of the content of all 337 photos, I really like that I can almost experience that particular zoo without ever actually visiting there. I can learn about the ways that animals are kept and viewed at a zoo in another country. Ways in which I see this type of photoblog being useful in the classroom are many. Students could view a photo collection such as this and discuss the country's value of animals and compare/contract them with many of the accredited zoos in the US. Students could also do a similar photoblog created with photos from their local zoo/attraction. They could also go through the photoblog and learn about different species, some of which a US zoo may not hold.

Wikijunior: Animal Alphabet

The Animal Alphabet Wikijunior book is wonderful for toddlers. I was searching through these wikijunior books and as soon as my 3 year old daughter saw it, we stopped and went through all of the letters and animals. They are like flashcards in wiki form. The pictures are so stunning and bright and the letters are emphasized on the page 3 times: once on the picture, once as the stand alone letter in the title and then again in as the initial letter of the animal. Not only can you go through all of the letters in this wiki but also the animal names and also a bit more about the animal or the habitat it is in. This would bbe a very simple project for a very young class to accomplish and it is very educational for toddlers. This was very much enjoyed.

Wikibook - Web 2.0 and Emerging Learning Technologies

"Welcome to the Wikibook Online Work (WOW) Projects! This book is a collaborative effort of students from universities in mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia, and the United States all collaborating during the fall of 2007 on a book titled “Web 2.0 and Emerging Learning Technologies” (also known as the “WELT”)." Anyone is welcome to join them in their efforts here.

This wikibook gives an introduction to Web 2.0 and goes into detail on topics such as Foundations, Learners, Instructional Design, Environments and Tools and the future. It's very informative and well written.

Synthesis Activity Part 2 for Module 2

Chapter 4 Wikis:

Wikipedia is the largest wiki on the web today. However, many other wikis are being incorporated into our everyday lives - from education to business.

• Wikis are simple enough for anyone and everyone to create and can be up and running within minutes.
• On a daily basis, wikis are being used by companies, schools, cities, families, organizations and libraries.
• There are tens of thousands of wikis ranging from educational to technical.

Wiki Wisdom:

Within the past three years, there has been a huge increase of K-12 educators using wikis, however, there are some potential problems involved.

• Protecting the privacy of the individual child is of utmost importance.
• Educators must determine acceptable use policies before incorporating these tools.
• There is always the potential for inappropriate comments and material to be added to the wiki so it's important to closely monitor any projects, public or private.
  

Research Activity part 2 - Review of 3 wikis

After reading some really great articles about the accuracy of wikipedia, I researched 4 wikis and now will report my take on them:

Holocaust Wiki Project - This project is basically a "you choose the ending adventure" or branching simulation about the Holocaust and affected families. The project began when the creator discussed with his SDSU Professor ways to bring a wiki into the classroom. The project starts with the user choosing a geographic location and then choosing one group of student's work. Each group of students had to create different family backgrounds, which includes family members and family history. I chose the Zarfati family from Salonika Greece. Then, the game begins! After I read the senario, I have two choices. One is to just wait and the other to try to get papers and leave. I wait to see what happens. After that choice, I was sent out of our home so we now have the choice to live in the alley or in a basement of a cafe. These type of options continue on until I had actually lost a daughter and get shot dead.

When the concentrated on the details of these senarios, I found this to be extremely informative and heartwrenching. It really depicts what families of the Holocaust could have and most definately went though.

This wiki was very easily to navigate through and was the type of wiki that even young children could easily use. I wouldn't recommend that younger children use this wiki due to the graphic nature of the topic.

Planet Math - Well, where do I begin...and remember, this is only my opinion and I am not a mathematician. I have no idea how to really navigate around this site. I am finding it really difficult to evaluate the actual content on this site. It probably is very beneficial to someone who is a math genius but I jsut don't know enough about the actual content to really comment. However, I do feel that I can comment on the navigation and look of the site. In order to find anything on the site, one would really need to know some accurate search words in order to find it. There aren't any areas where you can point and click to get the data. One section I looked at had 50+ pages of at least 20 items/page. There is an awful lot of data on this page but it is definately not a page for just the average person. That's it for that one!

ITSopedia wiki - This wiki was created by students and Professors in the ITS graduate program at George Mason University. This wiki was created as a private project accessed with a password. The home page takes one to the list of authors and the list of entries. Once into the list of entries, the next page goes to the Tools for Teaching page and also a page that defines certain educational acronyms. The tool for teaching page has links to pages defining tools such as telecommunications and web-publishing. These pages go into so much detail but it is very easy to understand. The navigation is so easy yet the wiki is very educational.

Summary: Of the three, I found both the wiki on the Holocaust Project and the ITSopedia wiki were very easy to navigate and very informative for a general audience. The Planet math wiki is definately for a more advanced mathematical audience. A wiki browser would not go into this wiki very far before moving on. The ITSopedia had a more interesting, fun look than the other two. That can be important when trying to grab the browser's eye. There are tens of thousands of wikis out there, every erroft must be made to draw the general visitor in.

After viewing these three wikis, I have definately learned that you really have to pay close attention to exactly who is the intended audience and write for them. If the wiki is too difficult to navigate through, it won't get navigated very often by the genral public. Also, the look really does make a difference to me, at least. I guess I like to spend time on sites that are appealing. I also learned that fun sites can actually be educational...they have meaning and can be useful in an educational way.

Web 2.0 Tools in Your Classroom

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Web 2.0 Tools in Your Classroom

View more presentations from markwoolley. (tags: read write)

Practice Activities - Module 2

Lesson Title: Animal Environments for Grade 2

Type of Web 2.0 Tool: Wiki - create your own ending

SOL and Secondary Objectives Related to the Lesson: Students will learn about animal adaption and habitat areas. They will learn about animal's as predator and prey and they will determine which animal is suited for a particular environment.

Brief Description of Overall Lesson: I will create the wiki page that will describe different habitat/environmental situations. One example would be this: "an animal is walking through a savanna and comes to a tree with wonderfully looking green leaves. This animal looks up and notices that they tree is 15 feet tall, however, his animal cannot climb trees or jump that high. Which animal do you think could eat these leaves?" I would give them 3-4 choices (photos of the different animals) and they would have to click on the correct answer. If they correctly or incorrectly, they would be directed to a new wiki page that described the animal. We would discuss why that animal would/would not be the best choice. We will have a small true/false test after completing all of the animals listed on the wiki home page.

Practice Activities - Module 2

Lesson Title: Red-crowned Crane Conservation

Type of Web 2.0 Tool: Wiki as a "Research Paper"

SOL and Secondary Objectives Related to the Lesson: Students will work collaboratively on this project. Each group will research one topic and create their own page on the wiki. Students will work closely with international students from schools that have been chosen by the education staff at the International Crane Foundation.

Brief Description of Overall Lesson: The students will create small groups of 3-4 students. The students will be asked to do some research on red-crowned crane conservation and come up with some topics of interest. After deciding on what main topics they will be writing on, they students will then begin working with their groups. We will also be adding into each group, an international student that could help them on their topic of choice. They will be asked to add web site links, photos, conservation group contacts and any other items they see fit for their topic. After all wiki pages are complete, each group will present to the class what they learned from their topic. At that point, they will come back together as one large classroom and discuss red-crowned crane conservation as a whole. I will be grading based on presentation of their wiki page, group evaluations and discussion participation.

Forgot the best one of all.........the FROG BLOG!!

Now this is more my thing. An educational blog geared around animals. The Frog Blog is a Houston Zoo blog which is a part of their zoo website. It does have links to the general information about the zoo, zoo memberships, zoo volunteer programs, etc., however, the main content of the blog is....yes, FROGS! The information provided is as general as frog habitats and biology and as specific as articles about skin breathing frogs and frogsicles.

Not a lot of comments...okay, none that I could see but my guess is that a lot of the followers are kids. It's fun, it's colorful, it's definitely eye catching. The main idea of this blog is to get out as much interesting information about frogs as possible and I truly believe they do this. They do it in a way that adults and children, alike, will enjoy reading their posts.

Differences between this one and the others assigned to me: I don't know who is writing this information. That's probably because it is not a true Frog-guy/gal writing it. I would assume this is done within the walls of the zoological society. There is not a lot of reflecting on the information...maybe not even considered a true blog. No section specifically for linked pages and no followers listed.

However, it is a fun way to get adults and kids interested in an animals that many would otherwise dislike!

Review of 5 Blogs - Research Activity Part 1

After reviewing these 5 blogs, I have realized that there are unlimited ways to organize one's own blog. The 5 blogs I reviewed range from very simple to the extremely complex. Some had very few links while others had hundreds. Some used their blogs to promote their businesses and books while others were simple thoughts for the day. Which one someone would choose to follow might be determined on their experience with blogs and also the writing style of choice.

Will Richardson's blog - I found this blog to be very extensive. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of links to other education blogs, general videos/photos and links to his items in Google, twitter, RSS feeds and youtube videos, skype, etc. My first impression of this site is that was created and managed by a very professional, well respected individual.

I visited a few of his links last night and already gained some valuable information about facebook, which I used on my own page. I will definatley be visiting this site to read more information. I even felt compelled to comment on a topic.

I really liked the use of Wiki's in his blog. There was very useful and easily searched information and I could get it all on his blog.

For someone who is very new to blogs, however, this might not be the best one to start looking through. Although the information does seem to be geared a bit toward the newbie, the site, itself, could be very intimidating, that's for sure.

One interesting point is that, all of the other blogs referred back to Richardson's page in some form or another. This just shows how trustworthy this blogger really is.

David Warlick's Blog - At first sight, David Warlick's blog seems more less complex. However, it seems to me that the information might be a bit more advanced and based more on the experiences of the writer.

I don't quite feel pulled in as much as with Richardson's blog. Obviously, others feel differently as Warlick's blog was awarded the 2008 edublog lifetime achievement award. The comments (and there are many) I read all seems to come from very intelligent, serious individuals.

I probably would not return to this site. Maybe this is because I am a zookeeper with an interest in education and not an educator with an interest in animals.....at least no yet.

Scott Hambrick's Blog - I really enjoyed this blog. Maybe it was because the first picture I see when I opened it was him and his new family. I felt that connection with an individual, rather than a expert blogger. His links are personal, his photos are personal and his discussions are personal. Obviously, not a very extensive blog but yet there were some good links embedded into the posts. There were not a lot of comments and the ones that were there seem to come from everyday teachers and parents. This blog seemed as though it was started as a side project and not something that was going to make him famous but that is what makes it enjoyable to read. I would definately follow this blog, if only it had been kept up.

Emmet Rosenfeld's Blog - This is another blogger that reflects on his experiences and his life as a father and a teacher. It seems as though it can and yet, because it is supported/hosted by Teacher Magazine, it still has all of the bells and whistles. There are still all of the links and the information is still there, it is just done through the Teacher Magazine website. Maybe because I am new to blogging or because, as I stated earlier, I am not an educator in the truest sence, I am not impressed by this blog. I should clarify. The writing is wonderful, however, it does not keep my attention and I would not follow it closely. I understand that this is what blogs can be, however, I think you really have to be interested in the subject to pay much mind to it.

Colleen McNeil's Blog - This site was one of my favorites. It really drew me in quickly. I loved the posts because I felt they were educational for anyone, with or without children. The links were very useful and fun....yes, fun. Many of the links from some of the other blogs just brought me to yet another dull topic. The six comments I read, again this is not a current blog, the followers seem to be everyday people who I can relate to. All of her links were definatley aimed at youth education.

In summary, I felt that, all around, my favorite blog was Richardson's. There was so much useful, everyday information on this site that anyo one of my friends could use it even though they are not educators. I believe that would find numerous topics to follow and impliment into their daily lives. I think the perfect mix would be one of Richardson's and either McNeil's or Hambricks. One where there is so much information on the blog, yet you are compelled to return because you care about the blogger as a person. You want to know their thoughts and activityes of the day but there is also a lot of valuable information that one can take from the blog.

Practice Activity Module 1 - lesson 2 of 2

Lesson Title: Red-crowned Crane Migration

Type of Web 2.0 tool: Blog as a website with weekly updates.

Secondary Objectives: Students will be updated on a weekly basis as to the migration patterns of the red-crowned cranes. They will be communicating with international students along the migration path and learning about their culture.

Overall lesson: Students will be able to track red-crowned cranes through their migration and learn about the habitats these birds select. They will do this through discussions with international students who live along the migration path and information put in daily posts. Students will be able to view these birds by means of videos and images provided by the international students. Expers from the International Crane Foundation, both in the US and internationally, have agreed to play a role in this blog.

Practice Activity Module 1 - lesson 1 of 2

Lesson Title: Animal Training
Type of web Tool: Blog as a collaborative space
SOL and Secondary Objectives Related to the Lesson: Gaining knowledge of animal training through the process of discussion, video and images.
Description of Lesson: Students will join the blog and learn about animal training by the use of example videos, images and collaborative discussions. We will be using the book "Animal Training" by Ken Ramirez to facilitate the discussions. Ken graciously agreed to monitor and join in on these discussions on a weekly basis. There will be a new weekly topic dealing with all aspects of animal training from the history of animal training to the advanced techniques and concepts. The book may be obtained from the link provided.

Synthesis Activity Part 1 for Module 1...

The "big idea" of the first three chapters in the book "blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms" by Will Richardson, in my opinion, is this:

CHAPTER 1:

The traditional definition of literacy: the ability to read and write might be better defined as to include all aspects of the read/write web.

Three supporting statements for chapter 1 are:
1. Practically everything we do today revolves around the web.
2. Students today are brought up in a technology based society. This is what they know.
3. As exciting and important as it is to use this read/write web in classrooms, we must keep our children safe while engaging in these activities.

CHAPTER 2:
Blogging allows students to reach beyond their typical classroom constraints and works well for all learning styles. They are a great constructive tool for students.

Three supporting statements for chapter 2 are:
1. One way to use the read/write web is by creating weblogs which are easily created and updated by the author(s) from any internet connection.
2. There are currently many ways in which classrooms are using weblogs (i.e. class portals, collaborative spaces and school websites).
3. Not only are blogs great tools for writing-based classes, teachers are using them for many other classes such as biology and mathematics.

CHAPTR 3:

The art of blogging needs to begin with the teachers. Millions of children are already using blogs, however, not always in the most productive ways.

Three supporting statements for chapter 3 are:
1. In order to become familiar and comfortable with blogging, the educator must first use blogging himself/herself.
2. One important aspect of blogging within the classroom setting is keeping the student safe by educating them on the best blogging practices.
3. Creating a simple blog is quite a simple process and can be shared between the teacher and students.

This new blog....

I have set up this blog in order to communicate with my EDIT 564 professor. This is were I will add all of my assignments for modules 1-5.